A significant loss for the cause of peace

With the recent death of Cuban Orlando Fundora, on February 2nd, at age 90, the global struggle for peace has lost one of its most illustrious fighters.

This was expressed with regret at the World Peace Council (WPC), where Fundora was Honorary President.

Orlando Fundora began his revolutionary actions in the student struggles of the Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza [High School] and the Escuela de Comercio [School of Commerce] in the city of Santa Clara in the center of the island.

In1945, he began working at a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada in Havana. There he became a prominent union leader within the banking system. For his participation in workers’ struggles he was the subject of systematic police persecution.

In 1954, he joined the July 26 revolutionary movement led by Fidel Castro, and participated in numerous revolutionary activities for which he was arrested six times, imprisoned, and repeatedly cruelly tortured by the repressive forces of the tyrannical regime of Fulgencio Batista.

Between 1957 and 1959, when he was forced into exile, he continued his patriotic struggle in Venezuela. For helping the revolutionary movement in that country he was arrested by the Venezuelan political police.

After the triumph of the revolution in Cuba he participated as war correspondent in Cuba’s defense against the mercenary invasion of Bay of Pigs in Playa Girón.

He took office as director of Cuba’s international broadcaster Radio Habana Cuba and later served for a brief period as director of Prensa Latina news agency.

In 1966, Fundora was promoted to the Foreign Relations Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and was appointed Chief Information Officer of its International Department. In 1973, he was appointed Head of the Departamento de Orientación Revolucionaria [Department of Revolutionary Orientation] of the Central Committee of the PCC.

In 1985 Orlando Fundora became President of the Movimiento Cubano por la Paz y la Soberanía de los Pueblos (MOVPAZ) [Cuban Movement for the Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples] a position he held until 2006, when he had to step down due to health problems — mainly orthopedic ailments derived from the police tortures he suffered during his revolutionary struggles against the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista.

With support, encouragement and material support from the USSR and the Socialist countries and Communist parties aligned with the USSR, the World Peace Council (WPC) was born at the end of World War II as an open organization for the participation of other forces with different political orientations.

Because of this inevitable dependence, conflicts and divisions within the international communist movement were immediately reflected in the WPC. The collapse of the European socialist bloc –and especially the disintegration of the USSR at the beginning of the 90s– seriously threatened the WPC’s survival.

All member organizations of the former socialist countries in Europe were dissolved and only the political will of a group of formations –among which the Cuban played a leading role– managed to keep the World Peace Council.

However, the WPC had to overcome many and very powerful obstacles to survive.

It had to face trends toward surrender rooted in a social democratic orientation that still exist in some organizations in Europe and other parts of the world that resist the WPC playing an active role in confronting imperialism.

At the WPC Assembly held in Athens, Greece, in 2000, Fundora conducted intense activity for unity within principles that was instrumental in revitalizing the organization (which then changed its headquarters to Athens) and stated the objectives of the WPC’s struggle against imperialism.

In recognition of the leadership of the Cuban Movement for Peace (MOVPAZ) in the process of fighting for the survival of the WPC, the WPC Assembly in May 2004 in Athens, Greece, elected Fundora –by consensus without opposition– President of MOVPAZ, as President of the WPC. In the following Assembly, held in Caracas in 2008, he was elected Honorary President of the world organization, a rank he held with dignity and which he served until his death.

In announcing the sad news of his death, the WPC said that they had lost a tireless champion in the struggle for peace and socialjustice, a man who dedicated his life to the revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle and to the just cause of the poor and oppressed around the world. He will be remembered and will serve as an example for future generations.

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